


so many wars we've fought (and we've got the scars to prove it)

by itsamagicalplace



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Descriptions of trauma and injury, F/M, Gen, Still The 100 world but plot changes, Violence in Later Chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 05:53:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17258750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsamagicalplace/pseuds/itsamagicalplace
Summary: "This wasn’t meant to have happened. They should have been rising from their seats with smiles and laughter, excitement billowing from their very being. As a group they should have been opening the hatch that used to exist in the ceiling, climbing out into this new world, this planet they had watched and dreamed of their entire lives. The planet of their origin.They should have been eager for exploration, excited to test the soils, breathe in the oxygen, find new life. They should have been here to find a new home. "Or, how Marcus Kane tore his soul apart making the biggest mistake of his life.





	so many wars we've fought (and we've got the scars to prove it)

 

_Before_

It was the smell she noticed first. 

In all the years spent dreaming about her future, of what lay ahead and what mysteries life would hold, awakening on earth to the aroma of death and destruction was not what Abby had had in mind.

The thick, acrid scent of melting plastic and charred fabric filled her nostrils, mingling itself with a faraway hint of something she instinctively knew, without needing any kind of visual confirmation, was burning flesh.

Eyes still firmly closed to whatever horrors lay around her, she swallowed, not wanting to think about what the latter scent represented.

With her eyes closed, her other senses worked harder to compensate for the loss of sight. The second thing she noticed therefore, was the acidic, unpleasant tang of what tasted like metal in her mouth. She swirled her tongue around the insides of her cheeks, over the smooth enamel of her teeth, before darting it out across her cracked lips, and tasting the warm liquid she could feel snaking its way down her face. 

That was definitely blood. Her blood. And quite a lot of it too. 

As her consciousness slowly poured itself back inside her foggy mind, like the slow dripping of treacle from a jar, the medical knowledge she’d spent the past decade researching whispered out from the back of her mind, helping her to work through her remaining unchecked senses. 

Touch. 

She flexed her fingers, sharp jolts of electricity shooting down a few of the fingers on her left hand. Abby inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with more air than they’d had since the moment of impact, before choking back from the smoke, and the pain that bloomed inside her. 

A deep ache, one that seemed to resonate throughout her entire being, was pounding away in her muscles - that was likely internal bruising from the stress of the impact. Her head felt like it could explode, and that paired with the blood she could still feel dripping itself slowly down her face, meant she probably had some kind of head-wound. Diagnosis - skull surface trauma (severity unknown) and likely concussion. 

She mentally fired probing thoughts around her body, sensing for anything else amiss, flinching internally at the occasional reflex that jarred or the nerve bundles that had locked like a vice in her back. She stopped at her lower limbs, finding a heavy throbbing that radiated across both of her lower legs. It was like someone was pushing the limbs into the floor, continually trying to crush the bones of her calves, splitting into her skin, cutting off the supply of blood. She tried to move her toes, but to no avail. She was trapped by something that needed to move if she had any chance of walking again soon. 

Abby took a deep, steadying breath, and opened her eyes. 

It was an action she regretted instantly.

The scene around her could have been described only as one of utter devastation. 

The dropship lay in ruins, scattered across a vast, smoking crater of dirt in every direction she could see. Almost every panel of the ship was either missing, or bent so far out of shape it would have been impossible to ever tell what had originally been its purpose. It was one of these panels that pinned her legs into the ground, a solid metal sheet which had sliced cleanly through her cargo trousers, through the tan of her skin, and embedded itself deep in the soil beside her. She tried to move again, but to no avail, giving a slight cry of pain. 

Through plumes of smoke she could see the sky above her, a deep grey colour swirling as though in anger at their arrival, as though they had dared to enter this world of which they had no right, and would therefore now suffer the consequences. 

And then, all around her, there were the bodies. 

Men and woman lay scattered, like broken china dolls, limbs torn apart, eyes staring vacantly.

Abby turned her gaze away, focusing on her breathing, and mentally trying to figure out how she was still alive. That was a miracle in itself really. Looking at the state of the crash site, the impact should have probably killed her instantly, and if not that then she should have been lost to the fire which had evidently been raging for a while before she’d regained consciousness, burning away half the bodies and supplies they had launched with.

The realisation that she should call for help came upon her then, but a quick glance over to where the now non-existent radio control panels should have been however told her that this was a useless thought. The few screens they’d had built into the ship, to monitor their surroundings and to communicate with the Ark, were shattered beyond repair or recognition, wires torn from their circuits and fried to destruction.

Abby sat in the wreckage and stared numbly at the corpses around her. 

This wasn’t meant to have happened. These people, _her_ people. They should have been rising from their seats with smiles and laughter, excitement billowing from their very being. As a group they should have been opening the hatch that used to exist in the ceiling, climbing out into this new world, this planet they had watched and dreamed of their entire lives. The planet of their origin.

They should have been eager for exploration, excited to test the soils, breathe in the oxygen, find new life. They should have been here to find a new home. 

As a population, those on the Ark had yearned for earth for so long, watching the blue and green orb with hopes and dreams. Now their small group had finally managed to reach it, after so much preparation. And their arrival had been greeted by devastation and death. 

She lay in the wreckage for a while longer, listening to the creak of metal, the growls from the sky above her, and the crackling of remaining fire, before the terrifying realisation struck. 

She was, it seemed, to be the only person still alive. The only one left, with no means of communication, no hope of rescue, and no ability to remove herself from beneath the metal sheet pinning her to the ground. She was trapped on a foreign planet, bleeding from her skull, with likely countless other injuries she had yet to even discover.

She was going to die here. 

Alone.

The thought was nauseating. 

Abby let her mind wash with memories of her daughter; the sound of her laughter when Jake was tickling her, the feel of her soft golden hair as she let her mother brush and plait it each morning, the quiet snuffles they’d hear as Clarke slept in the cot beside them. 

She let these thoughts overtake her mind, before she closed her eyes once more, submitting herself to whatever fate would come.

\---

“How long since the signal was lost?”

“Forty-eight minutes, Sir.”

The chancellor paced up and down across the chamber, his footsteps echoing around the walls, like a continued reminder of their failure. 

“Try again.”

It had been forty-eight minutes since they had last had any contact or signal from the dropship. Forty-eight minutes since the mission that they were prepared for, had worked hard for, installed everything onboard they thought would be required, and calculated all of the potential risks surrounding it, should have safely touched down on the ground of the blue planet below. 

Enough calculations and run-throughs had been done to know that the ship should have entered the earth's atmosphere at precisely the correct speed, releasing the parachutes at exactly the right time, before slowing down with enough leeway to allow them to land on the surface without much more than minor damage. 

A few minutes after this, the Ark should then have received confirmation of landing from a member of the science team on board. The required samples of air, soil, and water would have been taken and worked upon in the dropship lab, their results being communicated back up to the Ark for further more detailed analysis by the science division. This process would have continued for several weeks, before scientists on the Ark would have given the all-clear that - as expected and hoped - the Earth was ready to sustain life once more, and the remainder of the Ark could follow.

But as soon as the dropship had entered Earth’s atmosphere, their carefully planned scenario had fallen apart.

The speakers in their command chamber had filled not with the informative measurements and calculations they had hoped to hear. Instead the council members were left listening to the stomach churning sound of terrified screaming, explosions, and utter carnage.

The speakers had filled the room with the sounds of death.

The minutes ticked by, the only sound now the crackle of static transmitting through to them, and the pacing footsteps of the chancellor as he walked back and forth across the front of the window. 

Marcus Kane was trying hard not to show any kind of weakness, any kind of emotion relating to the situation unravelling in front of him, despite the swirling pit of anxiety and dread that was filling him internally, churning through his stomach and threatening to strangle his throat from the inside out. He had spent the past few years working hard to create a reputation of steel, and due to this he would remain as stoic and professional as ever, assisting the chancellor with whatever needed to be done next. 

He could not fail now.

But as he looked out of the window pane that filled half of the chamber, past the silhouette of the chancellor who now leaned against the glass panel, and down at the familiar sight of their destined planet Earth, it was hard not to imagine. Not to let the thoughts he was so desperately trying to keep at bay swirl into the forefront of his mind, reminding him about the fiery deaths of those on board, the agony of their last moments. It was hard not to think of _her,_ and the fact that not only should she have never been on board in the first place, but that she had only actually been there because of him.

Kane exhaled slowly, an attempt at getting his heart rate to stabilise.  

“The events that took place today remain within this room” the chancellor announced solemnly, looking around at the ashen faces surrounding him, at the fellow council members too shocked to argue with the order to silence themselves. “Any member of this room found to have leaked the details of this mission will be punished accordingly.” 

A few murmurs rose up, but they quickly stopped.

“And those on board, Sir?” Kane asked a moment later, his chin high and arms clasped tightly behind his back to hide his trembling hands. He would not show weakness. He would not show any sign this had affected him more than anybody in the room could ever know.

The chancellor just looked at him, with sorrow in his eyes.

“All those on board, are to be presumed dead.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know your thoughts! I've not really written fic for a while, and this will be my first multi-chapter for Kabby.


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